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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Case-Akaka bout becomes a fight for the ages
POLITICIANS, like boxers, often don't know when to quit. For both politicians and boxers, the lure of the ring, the excitement of combat and the chance for glory are hard to give up.
"Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world," said Archimedes. Or maybe it was Archie Moore. In any case, neither Archie Moore (199 fights, 145 KOs) nor Archimedes (Romans: 1, Archimedes: 0) could have found a lever long enough to pry most politicians out of office long past the time they should've thrown in the towel.
Many people think that's the issue in the main event on our primary election fight night. In what has developed into the political bout of the ages -- literally -- 81-year-old U.S. Sen. Dan "Akamai" Akaka is being challenged U.S. Rep. Ed "Da Kid" Case, 53. Case has been careful not to play the "age card," choosing instead to frame the fight as a "choice between past and future." Akaka seems to remember Ronald Reagan's take on the age question: "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."
For some voters, this looming fight is dredging up the kind of uncomfortable feelings that surrounded the proposed heavyweight boxing match in Hawaii between aging legend Muhammad Ali and European champion John L. Gardner in 1981. I remember how exciting it was to see Ali in person but, like a lot of people, I thought that he should retire with dignity and grace from a long and glorious boxing career and let the next generation of fighters take the stage. The Ali fight was blocked, thankfully, and he has since attained the position of sort of "world statesman."
THE POLLS say that Akaka can beat Case in the primary election, barely, but would it be better for him step aside with dignity and grace and allow the torch to be passed to the next generation of Hawaii politicians? That's the question that floats like a butterfly and stings like one of those big kine centipedes.
It makes Hawaii voters uncomfortable to have to choose between their hearts and their heads. Their hearts go out to the genial Akaka, but their heads know that for a small state, it's important for Hawaii to begin building new seniority in Congress. What's being said quietly in the background, and apparently not to pollsters, is having Hawaii's two Senate seats filled by gentlemen in their 80s isn't exactly planning for the future.
Which brings up U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, who, to push this overwrought boxing analogy painfully further, is clearly in Akaka's corner. And why not? Inouye's a loyal guy and takes all that Senate collegiality stuff seriously. Not only is Inouye sticking with Akaka, he's one of the few national Democrats who hasn't joined the left wing attack ferrets in savaging renegade U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
That Inouye isn't in his corner shouldn't bother Case. Case made his bones in the state Legislature taking on the "old boy network," specifically attacking Bishop Estate, which had become a sort of a gated Old Boy Millionaires Retirement Complex. It would look a little weird now if Inouye, the king of old boys in Hawaii, suddenly was slapping Case on the back and tousling his hair.
The Honolulu Lite Political Prognostication and Pupus Department thinks the Akaka-Case bout is too close to call. That's good, because with its deft reverse-Midas touch, every politician that Honolulu Lite has predicted would win has been mauled horribly. (We probably should note that whoever wins the Case-Akaka bout will face a Republican challenger in the general election. But with former Vietnam veteran and presumed primary election winner Jerry Coffee dropping out for health reasons, Case or Akaka will face one of five obscure Republicans whose names in Hawaii have become household mysteries.)
BUT AKAKA should be a bit worried. As a long time -- one might say, entrenched -- incumbent whose name drops off of the lips of even small children throughout island homes, to be only a few points ahead of Kid Case in the polls has got to be unnerving.
It is possible that many of those polled are too polite to even anonymously state that they secretly support Case. They are like bettors waiting until the last minutes before a boxing match to race to the betting window to get the best odds on the underdog. Or maybe they just don't want to hurt the feelings of a decent man who has served Hawaii for decades, but whom they would rather see depart the political game with dignity and grace, rather than be knocked out by an up-and-comer.
Charles Memminger, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' 2004 First Place Award winner for humor writing, appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. E-mail
cmemminger@starbulletin.com